Category: Science and the Media

False “balance” on influenza with an appeal to nature

One of the encouraging shifts I’ve seen in health journalism over the past few years is the growing recognition that antivaccine sentiment is antiscientific at its core, and doesn’t justify false “balance” in the media. There’s no reason to give credibility to the antivaccine argument when their positions are built on a selection of discredited and debunked tropes. This move away from...

/ February 13, 2014

I Visited a Chickasaw Healer and All I Got Was an Elk Sinew and Buffalo Horn Bracelet

Which headline is real? I Visited a Alchemist. As American alternative chemistry grows in popularity, I decided to experience an even older style of nontraditional transmutation of metals. I Visited an Astrologer. As American alternative astronomy grows in popularity, I decided to experience an even older style of nontraditional stargazing. I Visited a Bloodletter. As American alternative medicine grows in popularity, I...

/ February 7, 2014

Science-based medicine throughout time

As 2013 comes to a close, because this probably will be my last post of 2013 (unless, of course, something comes up that I can’t resist blogging about before my next turn a week from now), I had thought of doing one of those cheesy end-of-year lists related to the topic of science-based medicine. Unfortunately, I couldn’t come up with anything I...

/ December 30, 2013

Garcinia Probably Works But Is Far From a Weight Loss Miracle

Women make up a majority of Dr. Oz’s audience. The majority of women would like to lose weight. That is a match made in heaven, a marketer’s dream. And Oz has never hesitated to exploit that fact to increase audience share, playing fast and loose with sensationalized evidence instead of giving his viewers science-based advice. Dr. Oz has promoted a series of...

/ December 24, 2013
iPhone radiation

No, carrying your cell phone in your bra will not cause breast cancer, no matter what Dr. Oz says

Dr. Oz continues promoting quackery, this time fearmongering that cell phone radiation causes breast cancer if a woman keeps her phone in her bra.

/ December 16, 2013

“Low T”: The triumph of marketing over science

A man on TV is selling me a miracle cure that will keep me young forever. It’s called Androgel…for treating something called Low T, a pharmaceutical company–recognized condition affecting millions of men with low testosterone, previously known as getting older. —The Colbert Report, December 2012   And now for something completely different…sort of. After writing so much about the latest developments in...

/ November 25, 2013

The new Surgeon General nominee and CAM: Is there a problem here?

Our fearless leader, Steve Novella, has informed me that he is traveling today. Unfortunately, I am preparing a talk for later today, and no one else seemed able to come up with a post; so I decided to adapt a recent post from my not-so-super-secret other blog and see what a different readership thought of it. I realize that I’m risking subjecting...

/ November 20, 2013

The Burzynski Empire strikes back

You might have noticed that I was very pleased last Friday, very pleased indeed. Given the normal subject matter of this blog, in which we face a seemingly-unrelenting infiltration of pseudoscience and quackery into even the most hallowed halls of academic medicine, against which we seem to be fighting a mostly losing battle, having an opportunity to see such an excellent deconstruction...

/ November 18, 2013

USA Today versus Stanislaw Burzynski

This is an SBM public service announcement—with blogging! Think of it as a bonus post, and don’t forget to read Mark Crislip’s regular biweekly offering, as it’s about an article in Skeptical Inquirer that particularly irritated him—and me, as well. Because, as we all know, the world needs more Mark Crislip. I’ve made no secret of how much I despise Stanislaw Burzynski,...

/ November 15, 2013

Irritated by the Skeptical Inquirer. Again.

I have a confession. I have been interested in issues skeptical since high school when I came across a copy of the Zetetic at Powells. In the pre-digital era I had a complete library of Zetetic-Skeptical Inquirers (SI) that a decade ago was tossed in the recycle bin along with a similar collection of MacWorlds. I have been interested in skepticism a...

/ November 15, 2013